It depends on what you want to do and how much time you have to devote to real estate investing. Don't let the gurus floating around tell you that you have to fix and flip or buy multifamily to be a real estate investor. Make no mistake, being an operator is being a business owner. If you feel like you don't want to own a business, investing passively as you have done is ok... and give yourself permission to be ok with it. For some people, investing in real estate passively, as you have done, is best because they have other obligations such as a high-powered job, family or just don't want to deal with the operational side of the business.
If you decide you want to be an operator, look at real estate expansively. Think about all of the strip centers you drive by, the vacant parcels that could be for a new home(s) or the warehouses where you your stuff from Amazon sits before your order. $50,000 is plenty of money to start. You just need to figure out where.
My story started with $85,000. My first deals were a couple small multifamily properties. I lived in one of the units for awhile and then started wholesaling and fixing and flipping some homes. This grew into a land development business where we focus on building subdivisions in North Texas and the Pacific Northwest. I still own residential and commercial (mainly retail) real estate in my personal portfolio.
The bottom line - there is ZERO need to get engaged with a guru. There are literally hundreds of great books you can get (BP has a great selection here) and thousands of hours of great content on YouTube that will teach you everything you need to know. Maybe buy a dozen of the books on the BP site and spend the next six months reading? That's more or less how I started but ultimately, the biggest thing was taking action and actually doing a deal.
